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The Melting Arctic Is a Horror Story

“Save the Arctic!”, however, is not a rallying cry that’s going to motivate many Americans. The Arctic is too distant, too far away, too alien. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. Think of the Arctic as our early warning system, a big screaming alarm that is alerting us to the fact that the planet we will live on tomorrow is nothing like the planet we lived on yesterday, and we better get ready. As the Arctic heats up, it raises sea levels in Miami and Bangladesh and every other coastal city in the world, and it increases the odds of wildfires in California and the west. In a sense, the massive changes that are taking place in the Arctic are remaking the weather in America and northern Europe, with profound implications for everyone who lives there, whether they know it or not. And they are a reminder of one of the great truths about climate change, and one that is hardest to grasp: In our rapidly changing world, no place is too distant or too far away to matter. Like it or not, we are all in this together. When ice melts in the Arctic, the west burns.